March 29
| 1920 | In a letter to General Inspector L. I. Hewes in Portland, OR, Chief Thomas MacDonald discusses BPR's responsibilities. Given the 50-50 matching shares, he says, "we have equal responsibility with the States for securing adequate returns to the public. [In fact,] I feel that we should take at least 50 percent of the responsibility . . . because we will get the full one hundred per cent of responsibility for failures." MacDonald also recommends that "our district engineers should work with the State highway departments toward the completion of a program which will include the roads in their order of importance, and in so far as possible place the projects in the order which will complete the main State systems before side roads are undertaken."
"Our organization as a whole must be absolutely honest and fair. It should be competent. It should be broad and above personalities in its dealings with the public generally and with individuals." |
